With the variety of activities any Story of Seasons game offers, it can be difficult to decide where to start. New to Mineral Town? The following guide will help you decide how to spend your hours farming! Let’s start with the basics:

1. Choose your difficulty level

After selecting your character info, you’ll be given a choice between two difficulty modes: Simple and Normal. Simple mode starts you off with a hefty 2500G and a ripe patch of turnips, among some other benefits. If you’re looking for a relaxing farming life, simple is the way to go. If you’re a ranch veteran, normal mode can present a nice challenge with no buffs.

2. Equip tools from your toolbox

Your tools won’t automatically be in your bag from the start; you’ll need to equip them from the toolbox in your house. Your beginning bag space will be limited, so choose carefully! You can always come back to the tool box to swap them out later.

3. Meet your neighbors (and get your fishing rod!)

NPCs live both in the forest area south of your farm and in the town north of you. Each one will introduce themselves the first time they talk to you. Zack lives at the very rightmost of town on the beach, and can hook you up with a fishing rod the first time you go in. This will also give you a chance to meet the possible spouses, and decide on who you want to court.

4. Meet the Harvest Sprites

The Harvest Sprite hut is hidden away behind the right side of the Church. In addition to being adorable and friendly, these little guys can help you with your farm chores! You can also play mini-games with them to increase their skill levels of said chores. This is useful for saving time once you start expanding your farm.

5. Buy and plant your first seedsWhile you’re exploring town, you’ll come across the general store. This is where you can buy most of your seeds, and crops will be a steady source of income for you, especially early on in the game. The fun part is picking which crops to grow each season! You can also buy seeds from Huang in the brown shack on the beach.

6. Make space for fodder

If you selected the easier ‘Seedling’ difficulty at the start of the game, a patch of grass will already be growing at the bottom right side of your field. Using your sickle on these squares will turn them into fodder for your barn animals, but if you shred them all at once, they won’t grow back. Your best bet is to clear the area surrounding your grass to allow the patch to grow on its own, and then cut it down over time as needed.

7. Start giving daily gifts to the Harvest Goddess (and Kappa!)

The Harvest Goddess can give you several gifts and bonuses if you give her a present everyday for a long period of time. Luckily, it’s not hard to find items she likes--flowers growing in the surrounding mountain area will make great gifts for her! She always appreciates crops grown on your farm, as well. The Kappa living in the nearby lake will only accept cucumbers, but will give you a special gift in return if you throw enough of these into the lake.

8. Start upgrading your tools

Copper, the first ore you need for tool upgrades can easily be found in the first floor of the mine. It’s best to first upgrade the tools you use the most (watering can for watering crops, fishing pole for fishing, etc). After that, you’ll need to start digging deeper to find silver and gold for the stronger upgrades, but even just the first copper upgrades will make your farming chores go by a lot quicker!

9. Save up for a Big Bag

Hidden at the bottom of the general store list is the Big Bag, which will allow you to carry more items at one time. As you grow your farm, you’ll need extra space for the fruits of your labor! This is one of the more pricey upgrades, so it's best to start saving up early. The bigger bags let you carry more tools, too!
 

10. Buy a chicken

Chickens are the least costly starter animal, and getting an egg everyday will boost your profits quickly. You can incubate your first chicken’s eggs to get more chickens for free, and they’re the easiest to care for. Eggs are also extremely useful in a number of cooking recipes.

11. Expand your animal empire

Picking which animals you’d like to raise is completely a matter of personal preference--you don’t have to raise any at all if you prefer other aspects of farming life! Rabbits, alpacas, and fruit cows are exclusive to this remake, as well as an array of pets. Have fun mixing and matching!

12. Upgrade your house

If you’ve been saving up money and regularly collecting wood and stone, upgrading your farmhouse should be well within your reach at this point in the game. Upgrading your house will grant you a kitchen to cook in, and enough space to live with a spouse.

13. Buy kitchen utensils

Every week after you get your kitchen, you’ll get a letter in the mail notifying you of a new utensil for sale. These can be bought at the general store, and fleshing out your kitchen will expand the list of dishes you can make!

14. Get a Fridge

Up until you buy a fridge, you won’t have anywhere to stash your extra produce or ingredients. Once you have one, you can start planning your snacks and meals! You can buy a fridge the same place you get your house upgrade--Gotz’s forest hut.

15. Get cooking!

Now that you have a full kitchen, you’ll be able to cook meals to fuel your farmer. This will help you be more productive in a single day, and cooked dishes also make great presents. Don’t forget about the cooking contest during the spring, either!

16. Decide on a spouse

If you’ve selected a sweetheart and have been courting them, you’ll notice the heart on their profile gradually changing color. At a green heart, you can begin dating them. If you’re indecisive, keep in mind that you can date as many eligible characters as you want, but you can only marry one. You can tie the knot with your sweetie once you reach a red heart level with them. Once you’ve said “I do,” there’s no going back unless you start a new game, so choose wisely!

17. Flesh out your home

With a bigger house, you’ll need something to fill all that extra space! You can get a wide array of furniture from Gotz, including a large clock and a record player, among other things. The total cost of every upgrade is, well…costly. Luckily, this just means you can take your time perfecting your farmhouse!

18. Prepare for winter

The winter season freezes over your fields, making you unable to grow crops for that season. You’ll want to harvest all of your crops and grass before then and prepare for less income. The bright side of winter is that it's the only season you can access the lake mine. Have fun exploring!

19. Win those festivals!

As a newcomer, it is very hard to win festivals during your first in-game year. A lot of them require high heart levels with your animals in order to win. Luckily, the same festivals will repeat every year, giving you as many chances as you need to go for the gold.

20. Have a child

You have to be married for quite a while before you’ll be granted a little bundle of joy (don’t worry, if you’ve married a character of the same sex, you can still have a child!) Either you or your spouse will become pregnant after 30 days of marital bliss, or the Harvest Goddess will ask you to raise a child for her. As long as you treat your wife or husband kindly, you’ll have your baby in just a few seasons. Your child will never age past the walking stage, making them your chibi bundle of joy for as long as you play.

Of course, you can accomplish most of these tasks in any order you please, the above is simply a guide if you become overwhelmed with all the options you have. Story of Seasons is a cozy gaming series, whatever approach you take, make sure you’re having a fun and relaxing time!

Enjoyed this article? Read these next!

1. SoS: Friends of Mineral Town Best Crops
2. SoS: Friends of Mineral Town Best Ways to Make Gold
3. SoS: Friends of Mineral Town Best Wife